Category: Cloudflare

This guide details the steps to help you to change your plan on Cloudflare using the Cloudflare API. You can always change your plan within the user interface of the Cloudflare portal, however, you may be looking to change your plans in bulk and that is where using the Cloudflare API makes more sense.

For the purposes of Cloudflare settings, a “zone” or “domain zone” is Cloudflare’s naming convention for a “website” URL address.

Prerequisites

Domain zone is already added to Cloudflare – You can simple add the domain as a Free domain zone (how to add here)

Domain zone ID: Zone ID retrieved from your Cloudflare portal. In my example, the zone ID for dejavuguides.com. Note – this is different from the ID you see in the website URL when you’re logged into Cloudflare.

Cloudflare plan in mind – So you know what you want to upgrade your plan to. You will typically need to have a credit card in place within your Cloudflare portal if you plan on selecting Professional or Business plan. Or if you have purchased an Enterprise license from the Cloudflare sales team, then an Enterprise license enabled by the team in the backend.

Details to allow you to use the Cloudflare API – This is essentially your log in details and ensures only authorised users can make changes to your Cloudflare settings for your domain zones.

You may be wondering what custom nameservers on Cloudflare are. They are basically nameservers with your own naming system on the nameservers itself. You can also call them “vanity nameservers”.

On Cloudflare, you can create and enable nameservers which reflect your own domain name (eg. ns.dejavuguides.com). You can use them in place of your Cloudflare assigned nameservers (replacing them). Such that when someone looks up your nameservers, they will see the following:

The custom nameservers can only be created as subdomains of dejavuguides.com (e.g. ns1.dejavuguides.com and ns2.dejavuguides.com).

When custom nameservers are created, glue records need to be created at your registrar with the IP addresses of your custom nameservers. Failure to do so can cause all DNS lookups for your site to fail. Further information can be found here: Can I get vanity or custom nameservers using Cloudflare?

Note: Your assigned Cloudflare nameservers will continue to work even after custom nameservers are enabled.

Here’s an example of how I have enabled this for my domain – dejavuguides.com

Set up custom nameservers on Cloudflare

Set up glue records reflecting IPv4 address and IPv6 address onto your domain name registrar. In my case, I did this on my domain name registrar – hover.com.

So how do I check if SSL is working on my website using Cloudflare?

Step 1 – Check that the Connection is Secure

When you type in your website, you should see it say the word “Secure” in the left of the address bar.

Then, when you click on this “Secure” lock, it’ll say, “Connection is secure”.

Step 2 – Check that the certificate is indeed live and verified by the web browser

You can check by using the Inspect element function available within your web browser.

You can do this by selecting the Chrome menu at the top-right of your browser window, then select Tools > Developer Tools.

Alternatively you can right-click on any page element and select Inspect Element.

You can use the hot keys, Ctrl+Shift+I on Windows device (orCmd+Opt+Ion Mac device) to open the DevTools (DeveloperTools).

Example of where to find the Developer Tools on a Mac device

You’ll receive a message if “This page is secure (valid HTTPS)

Step 3 – How do I check what type of SSL is working on my website?

Once you have confirmed that the SSL certificate is working on your website and it is secure, you can check how it appears to website visitors.
Cloudflare offers you a few different types of SSL certificates:

Free Universal SSL certificates

Dedicated SSL certificates

Custom SSL certificates

Each of these SSL certificates are secure, however, the link/ URL displayed will differ and who manages the SSL certificate.